inspiring the food on your table & celebrating the people who surround it

Bespoke Cocktails

Nothing announces to the world that you’ve moved past your keg-stand college days quite like a grown up cocktail. Most guys have a favorite, something simple and easy they can shake up at home, minimal effort and though required. But when you’re trying to impress a girl- a little effort and thought go a long way. Having the ingredients on hand for a bespoke cocktail this summer will score you big points with the women in your life, and give you something pretty damn delicious to sip on yourself when you’re craving something that doesn’t come out of a can.

Infused cocktails populate the drinks menus of upscale restaurants from coast to coast. Get in on the trend and cut out the middleman by making your own infused spirits. While it smacks of Prohibition and Moonshine (in the best way), you won’t need to do any actual distilling. Just buy yourself the largest bottle of vodka, gin, or tequila you can find, the infusing flavors of your choice, and some Mason jars from your local hardware store. Feel free to follow my recipes exactly- they all turn out dangerously good, or go nuts and come up with your own combinations. Use your go-to drink order as a guide, and try to apply a similar flavor profile to your infusion. In terms of the quality of the alcohol you infuse, try to spring for something you’d actually want to drink if it weren’t infused. I’m not saying you have to use top shelf, but leave the bottom shelf plastic bottles with handles to the kids celebrating senior week.

Make sure you wash everything really well before you add them to the jars, as any dirt or sediments will muddle the flavor of your infusion, not to mention just make the whole thing taste kind of gross. Nobody, girls especially, want to sip on a drink with a film of dirt around the edges. I’d also like to make my case for organic produce, as any pesticides that have steeped into the produce will inevitable end up in your cocktail glass. But again, use what you like- the alcohol is probably strong enough to kill off most of the nastiness of whatever you steep in it.

Once you’ve given your infusions four or five days in a dark corner, maybe under your bed, giving them a shake whenever you remember, just strain them a couple times with a fine sieve. Then just wash your mason jars in boiling hot water, and pour your newly flavored booze back in. They’ll keep for several weeks on the shelf or in the fridge, though I doubt they’ll last that long. Infused cocktails are the perfect way to loosen your girl up and get her to relax, with a tone of classiness that booze in any other form just can’t compete with.